Hard Disk Manager solutions are not always very user friendly, especially if you’re not tech savvy. Paragon seems to have created a solution that works for everyone, offering a preview version that is free for you to keep.

Paragon Hard Disk Manager 16 Preview is presented as a complete all-in-one solution to protect, maintain, and manage PC systems and data. Paragon Hard Disk Manager 16 Preview includes, adds the company behind the product, Paragon Software Group, “comprehensive backup, recovery, and partitioning features for managing modern storage devices. The 16th version comes with a completely redesigned, intuitive UI, new handy scopes to represent feature sets, and advanced features to accomplish system and data management tasks – even the most advanced ones — easier than ever.”

I’ve used Paragon’s software before, exactly because it was pointed to me as the best solution available for my needs for a specific operation. In fact, their Paragon Migrate OS 5.0 is considered the best tool to migrate Windows systems to new storage devices, especially if you’re moving your OS from a HD to SSD. As I wrote then, “The magic of Paragon Migrate OS 5.0 is that it instantly performs fast and safe Windows migrations and even downsizes to smaller capacity drives, thanks to advanced data exclusion capabilities.”

I was amazed at the functionality of the program when I used it and added to my comments that “Paragon’s intuitive wizard in Migrate OS simplifies the migration process, automatically downsizing the source system volume and providing intelligent selection of specific files when migrating to smaller-capacity drives, and auto-aligning copied system partitions – all without rebooting the system.”

Now, I had a chance to try this new software, as it arrived at a moment I needed to create some backups of dying disks, and due to the experience it is one I will include in my toolbox, because Paragon seems to have taken things one step further, in terms of interface, and what is offered here is a solution that seems user friendly and open to be usable by anyone needing to use backup, recovery, and partitioning features for managing modern storage devices.

The interface of the program offers you eight different options, accessible through short cut wizards that will help you to get the whole process completed without problems. Things like creating a backup job become easier, through the use of the wizard, which makes complex backup processes simple and ultra-fast, allowing users to define automatic backup jobs by selecting from predefined strategies. You can use one of the several built-in automatic backup strategies to choose from, or create your own, if you’re comfortable with the process.

In fact, what Paragon Hard Disk Manager 16 does is to offer an easy path, almost automatic, for those not familiar with the features it offers, but at the same time give advanced users full-control to adjust parameters according to their needs. When creating your own backup strategies, you can specify, according to Paragon, “the start time (daily, weekly, monthly, or at specific events, such as system start or user login), adjust the number of increments created, define a strategy for deleting old archives, and control other options, such as shutting down the PC after backup. Another handy new feature is the creation of network connections, which are used to save backups on networked storage.”

One aspect I think should be mentioned is that Paragon Hard Disk Manager 16 does not just guide you through each different process, it gives you information about each step, giving you a better understanding of how it works. It does so not only through the info presented on screen, but also pointing you to a manual online, a knowledge base, the forum for the program, besides a product tour that gives you the essential info to start using it. While some of the online links will only offer specific info about this version in the coming months, there is already a lot of information related to Paragon products that also applies to Paragon Hard Disk Manager 16.

The clean user interface really helps to guide new users through the multiple options available, pointing them to the right selection, while the wizards hidden behind it, which have been redesigned to cover more scenarios, have been combined in four main areas: Backup & Recovery, Partition Manager, Disk Wiper and Drive Copy, which cover most of the operations you expect to have at your fingertips when it comes to your hard drives.

The Backup & Recovery section allows you to create a single backup, create a backup job, restore a backup or transfer files using the File Transfer Wizard. The Partition Manager, as the name implies, allows users to undelete, split or merge partitions, and redistribute free space. The third section Disk Wiper, wipes disks and partitions, while the Drive Copy allows users to migrate anything you need, from whole machines to systems, partitions or files to every destination you like.

The program includes other options in terms of controlling your HDs or SSDs, allowing to convert disks to MBR/GPT, format or delete volumes, test partition surfaces of check the file system integrity, and many others. In fact, it seems to be the  complete all-in-one solution to protect, maintain, and manage PC systems and data that Paragon promises. To build the program, says the company,  it took “hundreds of meetings, hurricane-strength brainstorms, countless discussions, 1,071,250 lines of code, 120 setbacks and miles of patience worn thin: all this went into the new Hard Disk Manager 16!”

Offering the option to do quick “stand-alone/single time” backups, which are a sure way to help users make more backups of their data, the preview of Paragon Hard Disk Manager 16 gives users the possibility to try all the features implemented in the new version of the program, without any limitations. In fact, the Preview version is free to use for an unlimited time, although it does not offer upgrades to later versions.

The commercial release is scheduled for fall, 2017, with a price that will be somewhere around the $50 mark, a value suggested on Paragon’s website. Paragon Hard Disk Manager 16 Preview is available for free download at Paragon’s website. Give it a try and you’ll probably be convinced that it is worth to pay the price to have the final version, with updates.